Causation in Criminal Law

When a person is charged with a criminal offence, the prosecution may need to prove that their actions caused the injuries suffered by the complainant. In some cases, this may be straightforward and unproblematic to establish. In other cases, there may be significant doubt as to what factors contributed to the outcome. This page deals with causation in criminal law.

What is causation?

The principle of causation in criminal law essentially requires the presence of a cause-and-effect relationship between the offender’s actions and the harm suffered by the victim. In order for a person to be found guilty of an offence that involves causing an outcome, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s actions ‘contributed significantly’ or were a ‘substantial and significant cause’ of the harm.

Substantial and significant cause  

A person may be found guilty of an offence even where other factors also contributed to the harm the victim suffered. This may include actions by the victim or actions that the victim failed to take. For example, if the victim did something to make their injuries worse or failed to seek medical attention, the accused may still be found to have been the cause of the harm that resulted.

When is causation an issue?

Causation is likely to be an issue where a person is charged with an offence that involves inflicting harm, or serious harm. For example, the offence of causing serious harm, or causing grievous bodily harm, requires the court to be satisfied that the accused’s actions caused the injuries suffered.

Homicide offences such as murder and manslaughter require proof that the accused’s actions caused the victim’s death.

A lot of offences do not require causation to be proved. For example, the offence of theft can be proven without any need for the accused’s actions to have led to any particular consequences.

Intervening acts

The issue of causation may be complicated where an intervening act occurs between the accused person’s actions and the final result. An intervening act may break the chain of causation, meaning that legal causation is not present.

An example of an intervening act is where a person causes injuries to another person, but the other person is involved in an accident before they obtain medical attention. If the accident results in further injuries, it may be unclear how much of the harm was caused by the defendant.

In this situation, the accused will still be responsible for the outcome if their actions are a substantial operating cause of the result. However, they will not be liable if their conduct is merely the setting in which another cause operates.

When is chain of causation not broken?

An important principle of criminal law is that you ‘take your victim as you find him’.

This means that if a victim is especially vulnerable, or has a religious belief that means they will not seek treatment that most people would seek, the offender is still liable for the harm caused to them.

In the 1975 English case of R v Blaue, the victim, a Jehovah’s Witness, died after being stabbed and refusing a blood transfusion due to their religious beliefs. The court found that the stabbing was the operative cause of the death in spite of the victim’s refusal of treatment.

If a victim has a pre-existing condition and suffers more extensive harm as a result of an offence than another victim would suffer, the defendant is still responsible for the harm caused. This is known as the eggshell skull rule.

Royall v R (1991)

In the 1991 decision of Royall v R, the victim died after falling form the balcony of a sixth-floor apartment after an argument with her boyfriend. It was alleged that she was either pushed from the window, or fell from the window while trying to avoid a violent attack. The court found that her death was caused by the defendant’s actions as he created a well-founded apprehension that she would be subjected to further violence if she remained in the apartment. As such, his actions were the substantial and significant cause or her death.

R v Evans & Gardiner (No 2) [1976]

In the 1976 decision of R v Evans & Gardiner, two accused persons stabbed a third person in the stomach during a prison brawl. After receiving medical attention, the victim recovered. However, the following year, he died suddenly from complications resulting from a complication that had arisen during the bowel resection surgery and not been caught in time. The court found that the defendant’s actions were the cause of his death. The medical staff’s failure to diagnose the complication did not amount to an intervening act.

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